


Consequences

by AmanitaVirosa



Category: Forgotten Realms
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 12:39:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13481676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmanitaVirosa/pseuds/AmanitaVirosa
Summary: After years of verbal and physical arguments things come to a head between Artemis and Jarlaxle...in what Jarlaxle believes to be the worst way possible.  Set a few years after Artemis has been freed from Alegni in an AU where things did not simply go back to how they were before.





	Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> My brain tricked me by conjuring this up after I let it run away with what was supposed to be FUNNY scenarios. I needed it out of my head, so have this horrible, nasty thing I've smushed into a fic.

They stood apart from each other, fists clenched, teeth grinding, throats tight. Their eyes locked in a continuation of the screaming match that had ended but moments earlier, harsh words and harsher thoughts expended. 

Jarlaxle straightened, keeping the eye contact but refusing to bow before Artemis in this. He knew it was his fault that Artemis had been sold to Alegni in the first place, knew that only a few years of freedom were not enough to erase the five full decades of servitude- but that did not mean he was going to stand here and be treated like shit while Artemis wallowed in his memories. He was free now. Acting as such was prudent for him to recover.

He stepped forward, reaching out a hand as he blew out a calming breath, “Artemis,” The man flinched away and he stopped, keeping his hand hovering in the air between them. 

“Do not,” There was something of a plea underneath, his body language screaming of self-protection.

“You are free now Artemis. Have been for 3 years now,” Jarlaxle tried reaching forward again, only for the next flinch to be significantly more aggressive.

“Do not touch me I said!” The words were snarled with bitter fury, Artemis’ hand coming up to smack his away- only to retract the hand at the last second before contact. Pain was evident in his face, his eyes, his voice. Even after all this time Jarlaxle was still capable of reading those minute expressions of the assassin's. He let his hand lower, not retracting it fully, but not leaving it so high in the air either.

They stood like that for several heartbeats, watching each other, the glares dissipating to simply watching the other. Eventually, Artemis sighed as he slowly, reluctantly reached up to his left ear and undid one of the small gold hoop earrings removing it from his ear lobe. His movements were equally slow as he lowered his hand, holding out the earring to Jarlaxle.

“Here,” His voice was rough, defeated almost, and Jarlaxle hated the implication that the man would admit to such a thing.

“I'm flattered, really, but I have plenty of earrings that are not quite so plain as that one,” His mind struggled to pin down why Artemis would offer an earring to him, resorting to his usual sarcasm as a means to buy time. He saw more than heard his error in that, watching the flash of hurt flicker across the assassin's grey eyes faster than a bolt of lightning. 

“It is the one you gave me,” Artemis’ visage twisted in a combination of a snarl and a grimace. “The one that granted me dark vision. I-,” the man cut himself off, hesitating, and Jarlaxle leaned forward minutely. “I do not need it anymore,” he finished with a sigh. 

He was perplexed, for he knew that Artemis often traversed darker areas where he would benefit from the dark vision. His brows furrowed as he speculated. “Is this your way of saying you wish me out of your life again? Your way of saying ‘fare well or fare ill’ this time?”

“No,” Another sigh, this time the steel grey of Artemis’ eyes flickered away, if even only for a moment. “I-,” another hesitation. “I have my own now,” It was whispered so softly Jarlaxle almost doubted he'd heard it. 

“How?” Confusion twisted his own features. He'd never heard of a human with their own dark vision, for that's what Artemis seemed to be implying. This time when the man's eyes flickered away they stayed averted. He watched as Artemis gestured to Claw at his hip.

“I have died too many times Jarlaxle,” his voice was soft, worn and exhausted under a weight Jarlaxle was only just beginning to glimpse. “There is nothing left of me that is-,” and here he hesitated again, and Jarlaxle knew the end of that sentence long before he finished it; the ice-cold ball of dread that filled his belly choking him with despair. “-human. I-,” he took a breath, and Jarlaxle wished he would stop but did not say it. “One can only commit suicide so many times before they become...twisted, corrupted,” a self-depreciating laugh, a hollow and ugly thing sobbed out of the man, more vulnerable than Jarlaxle had seen him in a long, long time. 

“I do not understand,” he breathed his words more than spoke them, but Artemis seemed to hear them all the same. The man sounded a short, harsh bark of laughter, more closely resembling pain than anything else.

“I am a ghoul, Jarlaxle. My body is dead, reanimated only through Claw’s ‘gift’,” and oh how he hissed that word, hateful and bitter as it rolled off his tongue. “I ‘possess’ my own corpse, the heart forced to beat, the lungs forced to draw air so long as I remain in possession of it,” Artemis shook his head, lifting the hand holding the earring only enough to draw his attention back to it. “I do not know when I will lose my sanity entirely. Already I find myself taking an obscene pleasure in killing, something I never used to enjoy,” when the man lifted his eyes to meet his again, this time Jarlaxle could see all the emotions there; pain, sorrow, shame...and a dark, vicious hunger underlying it all. “I would rather you not...be here when that happens,” and Jarlaxle's heart broke, filling and shattering with an emotion he hadn't even been aware he'd had, all in that one moment. His hands- both of them- reached forward to grab Artemis’ outstretched one and wrap around it. 

“Keep it,” his voice broke, warbling, and he was distantly aware of wet streams tracking down his face. “Keep it Artemis,” his hands wrapped tighter around the hand in his grasp, the warmth of it suddenly seeming such a cruel juxtaposition to the reality. He stepped forward, wanting in that moment to be closer to this man, this assassin that meant so much more than Jarlaxle had ever shown him, and his heart shattered a little further when Artemis took a mirroring step backwards, that horrid hunger flashing in his eyes an instant before.

It was several moments that passed before either of them moved again; Artemis curling his fingers around the earring still in his palm, Jarlaxle letting his trembling hands drop to his sides. Neither said a word more to each other as they stood there for another precious minute before Artemis lifted the little golden hoop back up his ear, securing it in place. They both took mirroring steps backwards until they finally turned their backs, separating and walking their own, solitary paths.


End file.
